1. European Publication Information Service - a Pilot Project
OKM:n bibliometriikkaseminaari

2. On the Agenda, but still unsolved…
Science policy and research evaluation at all levels of the European Research Area need support from reliable, comparable, and comprehensive information on research activity, productivity and quality.
Commercial databases, Web of Science or Scopus, do not provide complete coverage of research output in any field, and in SSH fields they suffer from severe lack of coverage of publications in books and languages other than English.

3. Two of the recommendations:
On the agenda, but still unsolved... A report in 2010 to European Science Foundation and the British, Dutch, French, and German research councils
Two of the recommendations:
Negotiate expansions and/or a new database with the suppliers of Web of Science and/or Scopus
Integrate national and institutional documentation systems

4. On the Agenda, but still unsolved…
A report in 2014 to European Parliamentary Research Service
The key recommendation:
The development of a European integrated research information system having features of a distributed infrastructure, inter-connecting the existing national research information systems, facilitated by CERIF – the European standards for research information systems (

5. On the Agenda, but still unsolved…
At the Strategic Membership Meeting of euroCRIS in November 2016, various international organisations agreed to explore the possibilities to cooperate in order to come to/create a European Research Information Infrastructure:
EARMA (European Research Managers), Science Europe (funders), OpenAIRE, German Research Academies, JISC, ORCiD and euroCRIS...

6. ENRESSH network
The “European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities” is a COST Action (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)
ENRESSH Working Group 3: Databases and uses of data for understanding SSH research
The main objective: “To reflect upon the standardisation and the interoperability of current research information systems (CRIS) dedicated to research outcomes from the social sciences and humanities (SSH)”
One of the tasks is to “Design a roadmap for a European bibliometric database”
Current activities of WG3, e.g.
Survey of national databases (survey)
Non-Bibliometric Analysis of Book Evaluation
A pilot study working towards an integrated European database of SSH research output

7. Pilot project
A pilot project in collaboration of CSC and ENRESSH on European VIRTA was launched in ENRESSH meeting in Sofia, March 2017
The target is to explore the use of Finnish VIRTA concept across different countries in order to create a European publication information service
The pilot project also produces a dataset for certain bibliometric analyses
Pilot universities
Norway: University of Oslo
Flanders: University of Antwerpen
Spain: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M)
Finland: University of Helsinki, University of Jyväskylä, Tampere University of Technology
Other countries are still welcome to join!

8. Principles for the European Research Infomation Service
Data transfer from national or local CRISes in a standardized format – annually or more frequently
All information freely available in a public portal
Via open APIs, the information usable for various purposes
National and institutional CRISes or other publication databases
XML files
European Research
Information Service
API
Using services (e.g. funders)
Public portal
Other use, e.g. CVs
Publication input service
(for non-CRIS organizations)

9. Pilot project – practical issues
Participating countries have reported their complete publication metadata from the years to VIRTA
Data format:
Finnish data model with some moderation is applied
The pilots exported their own data into a CSV model file and converted the file into XML by using a CSV-XML tool.
Fields of science
The pilots mapped their publications into FoS classification

10. VIRTA pilot: number of publications
Note: Finland and Oslo cover all fields, Antwerpen and Madrid only SSH

11. Issues of data comparability
Publications to be included
Publication types to be included
Publication type mapping
Disciplines
Detailed data format
Required and optional fields and local additions in data model

12. Issues of data comparability: Publication type mapping
Finland / Madrid
Flanders
1=peer-reviewed / 0 = non peer-reviewed
Norway
Peer-reviewed articles
A1 Journal article, original research
VABB-1: journal article 1
3= Article in series (ISSN)
A2 Review article
A3 Book section
VABB-4: book chapter
2= Article in book (no ISSN)
A4 Conference proceedings
VABB-5: proceedings paper
Non peer-reviewed articles
B1 Non-refereed journal articles
B2 Book section
B3 Non-refereed conference proceedings
Monographs
C1 Book
VABB-2: monograph
1= Monograph
C2 Edited book
VABB-3: edited book
Professional
D1 Article in a trade journal
D2 Article in a professional book
D3 Professional conference proceedings
D4 Development or research report
D5 Textbook, professional manual or guide
D6 Edited professional book
Popular
E1 Popularised article, newspaper article
E2 Popularised monograph
E3 Edited popular book

13. VIRTA pilot: Publications by types

14. VIRTA pilot: Publications by Finnish Publication Forum levels

15. Next steps of the pilot project
Additional data from the pilots
More detailed biblliographic data
Coverage of all fields of science
Publication channel lists and rankings from other countries
The European VIRTA pilot will be held open: Other countries can still join!
Bibliometric analysis
The data collected in the pilot has its highest quality and consistency in terms of the bibliographic data
Focus on journal analysis
Creation of a more general data model
Standardization of classifications

16. Hanna-Mari Puuska
Development Manager